Following the announcement that jobseekers will have benefits cut if they don't learn English, Professor Peter Kruschwitz debates the essential role of linguistic skills
Languages convey ideologies, thoughts, and images.
Jobseekers who don't learn English may have their benefits cut, David Cameron and work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith announced this week. Cameron is quoted as saying: "We're saying that if there's something you need to help you get a job, for instance being able to speak English and learn English properly, it should be a requirement that you do that study in order for you to receive your benefits."
Whether or not one agrees with Cameron's punitive rather than rewarding measures to enforce employability, this is a remarkable statement. The media have largely focused on the impact of this statement on migrants. However, it would appear that this policy also covers natives whose language skills are not up to scratch.
It would be perverse to argue that, in a modern society, one could leave it at individuals' liberty to learn the majority language. It is an essential skill, enabling individuals not only to survive, but to participate and engage constructively in political, social, cultural, and economic life. In that respect, the measure seems politically reasonable, even if the form of enforcement may seem questionable.
However, there are further issues at stake here, and these tend to get lost in this important debate. It may be a commonplace, but it is true regardless: language means power. In this case, the debate at first glance focuses on the fact that a lack of language skills means a lack of economic power – poor language skills mean a reduced employability.
However, especially when it comes to migrants, this is only half-true. Their English skills to one side, migrants do speak at least one, in many cases several languages. What about their skills in their native languages? Isn't there a huge potential, even in economic terms, to be explored (I hesitate to say: exploited)?
Languages are not exclusively about communication. Languages convey ideologies, thoughts, images, and even poetics. The reason why specialist translations, even with the support of all our highly developed technological equipment at the beginning of the twenty-first century, are still produced by real people is simple: computers have not yet managed the subtlety of nuance that mark out real language skills.
To learn a language means more than to be able to render discrete words or sentences into a different code. In a society with an ever-increasing number of bilinguals, this must mean opportunity and potential. Increasing numbers of the population have an ability that is highly sought after, but are still barred from access to power and participation. Why is that? Is it really just their lack of fluency in the majority language, or is it the majority culture which is intent on producing monolinguals, thus missing out on the socio-cultural as well as on the economic potential that lies within these segments of our society?
These concerns are not new. Only this week it was announced that the Foreign Office was worried about the lack of language skills and training of its staff. And one need only think of the recent debate regarding the axing of the BBC World Service's foreign language programmes or the ongoing discussion on language teaching in our schools and universities, to realise that these are problems that need addressing. It is time for a more complex public debate about this as well as about the complex relationship between language and power.
• Professor Peter Kruschwitz is head of classics at the University of Reading. The university hosts a debate, Cultural hegemony vs. linguistic diversity: do we really need to learn foreign languages? on 23 September
Whether or not one agrees with Cameron's punitive rather than rewarding measures to enforce employability, this is a remarkable statement. The media have largely focused on the impact of this statement on migrants. However, it would appear that this policy also covers natives whose language skills are not up to scratch.
It would be perverse to argue that, in a modern society, one could leave it at individuals' liberty to learn the majority language. It is an essential skill, enabling individuals not only to survive, but to participate and engage constructively in political, social, cultural, and economic life. In that respect, the measure seems politically reasonable, even if the form of enforcement may seem questionable.
However, there are further issues at stake here, and these tend to get lost in this important debate. It may be a commonplace, but it is true regardless: language means power. In this case, the debate at first glance focuses on the fact that a lack of language skills means a lack of economic power – poor language skills mean a reduced employability.
However, especially when it comes to migrants, this is only half-true. Their English skills to one side, migrants do speak at least one, in many cases several languages. What about their skills in their native languages? Isn't there a huge potential, even in economic terms, to be explored (I hesitate to say: exploited)?
Languages are not exclusively about communication. Languages convey ideologies, thoughts, images, and even poetics. The reason why specialist translations, even with the support of all our highly developed technological equipment at the beginning of the twenty-first century, are still produced by real people is simple: computers have not yet managed the subtlety of nuance that mark out real language skills.
To learn a language means more than to be able to render discrete words or sentences into a different code. In a society with an ever-increasing number of bilinguals, this must mean opportunity and potential. Increasing numbers of the population have an ability that is highly sought after, but are still barred from access to power and participation. Why is that? Is it really just their lack of fluency in the majority language, or is it the majority culture which is intent on producing monolinguals, thus missing out on the socio-cultural as well as on the economic potential that lies within these segments of our society?
These concerns are not new. Only this week it was announced that the Foreign Office was worried about the lack of language skills and training of its staff. And one need only think of the recent debate regarding the axing of the BBC World Service's foreign language programmes or the ongoing discussion on language teaching in our schools and universities, to realise that these are problems that need addressing. It is time for a more complex public debate about this as well as about the complex relationship between language and power.
• Professor Peter Kruschwitz is head of classics at the University of Reading. The university hosts a debate, Cultural hegemony vs. linguistic diversity: do we really need to learn foreign languages? on 23 September
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